A Night With the New York Pops

The Marine Park Junior High Jazz Ensemble played the Pierre to help raise funds for the New York Pops.

Best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford’s opening night with the New York Pops yesterday started with the concert at Carnegie Hall, where everyone was giddy over the young, new — and movie-star dashing — music director, Steven Reineke, whose charge is to carry on the legacy of the beloved Pops founder Skitch Henderson.

We caught up with Ms. Bradford as she was putting down the place cards at her table in the Pierre’s ballroom for the post-concert supper, and learned that she and the Pops go way back.

“About 28, or 27 ½ years ago, my husband and I were great friends of Skitch and Ruth Henderson, and he told us about this idea he had for the New York Pops. We gave the first cocktail party, where we invited people to come and talk about raising money to get the New York Pops started. And two years later it came together," Ms. Bradford said. "My support of the Pops started out of friendship, and then it became exciting, and tonight, seeing the new music director, was very exciting. Let’s hope it goes for another 26 years.”

The members of the Marine Park Junior High Jazz Ensemble had a different experience of opening night. They saw most of the concert at Carnegie Hall, had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and came over to the Pierre early to set up to perform for guests as they arrived.

They did scales to warm up and went over a number or two before it was show time. “When we get something wrong he makes us do it over and over again,” a member of the ensemble, Justin Ficarra, said of his award-winning band’s director and music leader, Anthony Mazzocchi, a trombonist. The ensemble is gearing up for a May 15 competition sponsored by the New York State School Music Association.

The New York Pops has several education initiatives. From October through April it offers free music lessons to junior high school students; 20 of these students performed in the gala concert. The Pops also has a “Kids in the Balcony” program that provides for jazz bands to come to Pops concerts, to the tune of 1500 tickets a year. Teaching artists visit schools a week before these concerts to teach the music on the program. The Pops also runs residencies for music teachers in New York schools.

By the time guests were bidding on auction items, the Marine Park Junior High Jazz Ensemble had packed up the drums and horns, and yet another band was playing: Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. Now it was time for guests to take a spin on the dance floor.

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